Nile seeks to redefine Network-as-a-Service, closes $175M funding

 Nile, a start-up based in San Jose, California, closed a $175 million Series C investment round, bringing its total funding to date to $300 million.

Nile, which emerged from stealth mode less than a year ago, offers a network-as-a-service (NaaS) solution designed to deliver a more secure wired and wireless service through the ex Nile’s service incorporates Campus Zero Trust Network Access (ZTNA) principles by design, and automates network access control (NAC) mechanisms that traditionally required significant manual effort to provision and maintain. 

The latest funding round was  co-led by March Capital and Sanabil Investments, with strategic participation from solutions by stc, Prosperity7, Liberty Global Ventures, and stc CIF (Corporate Investment Fund), and contribution from 8VC, Geodesic Capital, U First Capital, and Valor Equity Partners. 

Nile was founded in 2018 by Pankaj Patel, formerly former EVP and Chief Development Officer at Cisco, and Suresh Katukam , who were joined by John Chambers and Sri Hosakote. John Chambers is the former Executive Chairman and CEO at Cisco. 

The company says this round of financing will further its mission to eliminate the operational complexities plaguing enterprise networks in their ability to support cloud-born enterprise IT solutions, while also delivering the highest levels of integrated defenses to protect both wired and wireless connectivity from cyber attacks. 

“Nile is in a strong position to take advantage of several paradigm shifts occurring across the technology ecosystem,” said Pankaj Patel, CEO and co-founder of Nile. “Cloud-born edge infrastructure solutions are altering the way we engage with each other and interact with physical spaces in offices, schools, and venues. AI is enabling data-driven decision-making to be adopted at a rapid pace. Cloud migration strategies for anywhere access to enterprise apps is top of mind for all IT executives, creating a tremendous opportunity for Nile. These trends present unique challenges in the way enterprise infrastructure is consumed, and Nile is committed to addressing them head-on, making our service as agile and innovative as the technology solutions it enables.”

www.nilesecure.com/enterprise-network

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Tech Update: Rethinking Networking with Nile

What's the story with Nile? Is there room for another networking start-up? Pankaj Patel, CEO and co-Founder of Nile, discusses:

• Nile's mission to remove human dependency from the management of the network, similar to what cloud computing has done for storage and computing. 
• Nile's goals to transform the traditional network, often associated with security risks, into a security force multiplier with zero-trust access that requires no manual network operations.
• How Nile is committed to delivering outcome-based SLAs that matter most to customers on availability, capacity, and coverage, all through an insane level of automation and heavy use of AI/ML-driven automation and data analytics.

Have a tech update that you want to brief us on? Contact info@nextgeninfra.io

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Lumen takes $8.8 billion goodwill impairment charge

Lumen Technologies reported revenue $3.661 billion for the second quarter 2023, compared to $4.612 billion for the second quarter 2022. The company recorded a Net Loss of $(8.736) billion for the second quarter 2023, which included a non-cash goodwill impairment charge of $8.793 billion, compared to reported Net Income of $344 million for the second quarter 2022

(revenue for the second quarter of 2022 includes $707 million of revenue from the Latin American business divested Aug. 1, 2022 and the 20-state ILEC business divested Oct. 3, 2022)

Under GAAP, the company is required to perform periodic impairment tests related to its goodwill asset. The sustained decline in our share price during the second quarter was considered a triggering event requiring evaluation of goodwill impairment. Based on this analysis, the company recorded a non-cash $8.8 billion goodwill impairment charge in the second quarter of 2023. The goodwill impairment was driven by the difference between the company's market capitalization and the carrying value, primarily in its North America business reporting unit.

"In the second quarter, we made progress on our three-pronged growth strategy to secure the base, drive commercial excellence, and innovate for growth," said Kate Johnson, president and CEO of Lumen. "While it is early in our journey, we are driving solid revenue performance in our portfolio of next-generation growth products through intentional migration from legacy services, expanding our addressable market through network upgrades and product innovation, and improving operational excellence to better serve our customers."

https://ir.lumen.com/home/default.aspx

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Cisco acquires Code BGP

Cisco has acquired Code BGP, a privately held BGP monitoring company based in Greece. Financial terms were not disclosed.

Code BGP was founded in 2021 by Fontas Dimitropoulos, Vasileios Kotronis and Lefteris Manassakis.

BGP security remains a critical issue. The companies report that this year alone there have been 6,000 incidents of BGP hijacks, route leaks, and other issues across the many thousands of networks that make up the Internet. 

Cisco said the Code BGP team will enhance its capabilities already provided by its ThousandEyes division.

https://www.thousandeyes.com/blog/cisco-announces-acquisition-of-codebgp

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Vodafone deploys Nokia’s 5G monetization software

Vodafone started deploying Nokia’s Converged Charging (NCC) software in multiple European countries, enabling rating and charging for 5G services.

NCC operates as a containerized network function in a 5G standalone environment and allows Vodafone to tap new revenue streams from 5G services, including network slicing and flexible product offerings.

Deployment spans several Vodafone markets in Europe, including the UK and Italy, and drives next generation charging standardized across Vodafone networks and provides real-time rating and charging capabilities; it represents a full migration from legacy charging to 5G-ready next generation methods.

https://www.nokia.com/about-us/news/releases/2023/08/01/nokia-starts-deploying-5g-monetization-software-for-vodafone/

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Cambium posts disappointing Q2, former CommScope exec named CEO

Cambium Networks reported Q2 evenues of $59.5 million, a decrease of 23% sequentially, and an increase of 14% year-over-year. There was a net loss of $2.6 million or $0.10 per diluted share, non-GAAP.

"Our second quarter results were disappointing as a result of lower demand for Enterprise products caused by lower order volumes from distributors and high channel inventories, and a challenging macroeconomic environment, especially in EMEA," said Atul Bhatnagar. "The company has recently initiated a cost reduction plan to increase profitability ahead of our next phase of growth which includes the FCC's anticipated approval of 6 GHz spectrum products, the ramp of our 28 GHz cnWave 5G fixed, 60 GHz cnWave technologies for service providers, and the expansion of our fiber-based solutions."

Bhatnagar continued, "We remain confident that new product cycles for next generation multi-gigabit fixed wireless and fiber products, increased government funding in North America, defense, and a return to growth for our Enterprise business will drive future growth."

Cambium also announced that Morgan Kurk, most recently a senior executive at Honeywell International, and prior to that, the executive vice president broadband market segment leader and chief technology officer at CommScope, has been appointed president and chief executive officer, effective immediately. 

Atul Bhatnagar is stepping down as the company's CEO but will continue to serve as a member of the company's board of directors.

"Cambium has established itself as a leader in the fixed wireless broadband and wireless networking categories and has achieved many product innovations since its spin-off from Motorola in 2011. We could not be more thrilled to have Morgan lead Cambium in the next phase of its journey. As a proven industry leader with a three-decade track record of delivering outstanding results, Morgan brings the right vision, experience and energy to drive growth at the company for years to come," said Robert Amen, Cambium's chairman. "We also want to acknowledge and thank Atul for his many years of leadership in establishing a culture of growth, integrity and innovation and in leading Cambium to where it is today."

https://investors.cambiumnetworks.com/

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Cisco intros Automated Ransomware Recovery tool

Cisco is extending its ransomeware Extended Detection and Response (XDR) capabilities with a set of third-party integrations to include infrastructure and enterprise data backup and recovery vendors.

A new integration with Cohesity enables Cisco XDR to automatically detect, snapshot, and restore business critical data at the very first signs of ransomware.

During Q2 2023, the Cisco Talos Incident Response (IR) team responded to the highest number of ransomware engagements in more than a year.

“The exponential growth of ransomware and cyber extortion has made a platform approach crucial to effectively counter adversaries. Our objective is to build a resilient and open cybersecurity platform that can withstand ransomware assaults and recover with minimal impact, ensuring uninterrupted business operations,” said Jeetu Patel, Executive Vice President and General Manager of Security and Collaboration at Cisco. “As a global infrastructure provider that built the network, Cisco is redefining what a security product should deliver. Our innovations with automated ransomware recovery are a significant step towards achieving truly unified detection and response data, turning security insights into action.”

https://newsroom.cisco.com/c/r/newsroom/en/us/a/y2023/m08/cisco-transforms-crisis-to-control-with-new-automated-ransomware-recovery.html

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